March Madness: Gone with the Wind

For those of you who expressed in interest in reading long epic novels together, I have decided to begin Gone with the Wind on Monday, March 2. For your information, I’m reading the 1st Scribner trade paperback from 2007. Having known practically nothing about the plot of the book, except for a vague sense that [...]

Reading Salon: Booker Shortlist and Little Giant

I have finished the review of The White Tiger but I have set my heart to read all five other books short-listed for this year’s Booker Prize to see how it measures up to the contenders.
Aravind Adiga The White Tiger (Atlantic) Winner
Sebastian Barry The Secret Scripture (Faber and Faber)
Amitav Ghosh Sea of Poppies (John [...]

[164] The White Tiger – Aravind Adiga

Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2008
“I watched him walk behind the bamboo bars. Black stripes and sunlit white fur flashed through the slits in the dark bamboo; it was like watching the slowed-down reels of an old black-and-white film. He was walking in the same line, again and again—from one end of the bamboo [...]

Reading Pile on Nightstand, Reading List

Look at my new Book Worm mug! Isn’t it cute? It was thoughtfully given to me. My last gift mug (the one I’m still using at home) is the “Is is Friday yet?” mug. To get ready for fall, I went through all my new books and singled out the ones I’ll most likely read [...]

[146] Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

Tolstoy considers Anna Karenina his most complete novel. Critics might be thought otherwise, and pick War and Peace as the quintessential novel, one of the greatest in the species. Tolstoy views the latter no more than a historical chronicle. Anna Karenina is known the first novel because Tolstoy has deliberately embraced the conventional limits of [...]

Anna Karenina: Love and Happiness

Anna Karenina Series 2
The adulterous and tragic affair of Anna and Count Vronsky is intertwined with the story of Levin and Kitty’s love in one of the world’s greatest novels. Kitty is pursued by two suitors. Levin is a wealthy landowner from the provinces who could move in aristocratic circles, but who prefers to work [...]

Anna Karenina: Quintessential Personal Conflict

Anna Karenina Series 1
We all (maybe not all, but those who are familiar with the story through the movie) know the story: Anna Karenina is charmer. She has beauty, social position, wealth, a husband, and an adored son—except that her existence seems to be empty. When she meets Vronsky on the train to Moscow from [...]

Catching Up, More Russian Lit, Finds

I have to catch up on replying to all your comments while I was gone, reading the blogs, and doing some actual reading. I have been avoiding to look at the Chunster Challenge site because I’m shamefully conscious that I haven’t made much progress in that enterprise. So to prove my repentance I have taken [...]

[144] The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov (Fourth Review)

Disclaimer: You might wish to read previous reviews and articles on this novel prior to this discourse for better understanding. See links below.
“You pronounced your words as if you refuse to acknowledge the existence of either shadows or evil. But would you kindly ponder this question: What would your good do if evil didn’t [...]

The Master and Margarita: It’s a Comedy?

The Master and Margarita Series 3
Despite the philosophical nature and themes—fate, existence of God and the Devil—the novel is considered a comedy. We might not full grasp all the scholarly and social in-jokes, but it is irrefutably a hilarious attack on the hypocrisy of early Soviet Moscow. In part two of the narrative, Margarita is [...]